WHAT THE FILM FESTIVAL 2018

Description

THE LASER BLAST FILM SOCIETY is proud to present the 4th edition of the WHAT THE FILM FESTIVAL, an annual celebration of contemporary eccentric cinema. Spanning March 24th – 25th at THE ROYAL CINEMA, this year’s festival not only promises five feature films, including two WORLD PREMIERES, but will also inaugurate the WHAT THE FILM BAZAAR presented by ARROW VIDEO, a market floor for VHS tape-traders, indie comic collectors, and vendors of obscure and cult cinema. The WHAT THE FILM BAZAAR presented by ARROW VIDEO will precede film screenings daily, and take place at THE MONARCH TAVERN (12 Clinton St.), mere steps away from the ROYAL CINEMA, and will also feature live-podcast recordings, bizarre presentations, and fun social events.
Secure your All-Access Pass for $40!
Individual tickets available at the box office on the day of the screening for $14. (THE PASS SAVES YOU UP TO $30 OFF REG. TICKET PRICES!)An All-Access Pass ensures you:
Access to all five screenings at The Royal Cinema
Access to the festival market at The Monarch Tavern
An limited print of the festival’s 2018 poster (illustrated by Shira Haberman)
$5 Coupon that can be used at any Market Vendor (on purchases of $10 or more!)
A limited supply of passes now available here: www.universe.com/wtf2018
The Complete Schedule is as follows:
SATURDAY, MARCH 24th:@ THE MONARCH TAVERN (12 Clinton St.)12:00 PM - 5:00 PM - THE WHAT THE FILM BAZAAR
2 PM - 4 PM - ARTIST SIGNING: MATT DALEY (acclaimed poster artist)
3 PM - 5 PM - ARTIST SIGNING: JENN WOODALL (Magical Beatdown)
3:30 PM - WTFilm SHORTS PROGRAMME
Witness a barrage of strange and surreal shorts curated from the depths of festival submission bins.
@ THE ROYAL CINEMA (608 College St.)7:00 PM - THE LAPLACE’S DEMON Dir. Giordano Giulivi / Italy / 2017 / 109 min - TORONTO PREMIERE!
Scientists find themselves ensnared in a sinister game of fate where their every decision has been anticipated and engineered to systematically send them to their doom in this sci-fi noir shot entirely against rear-screen projections over seven years!
9:30 PM - MANGOSHAKE Dir. Terry Chiu / Canada/ 2018 / 97 min - WORLD PREMIERE!
An uproarious lo-fi labyrinth of suburban adolescent shenanigans over ‘one crazy summer’ that recalls the generational coming-of-age myths of Richard Linklater or George Lucas’s American Graffiti and introduces a bold and brilliant new Canadian filmmaker!
SUNDAY, MARCH 25th:
@ THE MONARCH TAVERN (12 Clinton St.)12:00 PM - 5:00 PM - THE WHAT THE FILM BAZAAR
1 PM - 3 PM - ARTIST SIGNING: JASON LOO (Pitiful Human Lizard)
2 PM - 4 PM - ARTIST SIGNING: BENJAMIN MARRA (Night Business)
3:00 PM - IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB PODCAST LIVE!
4:00 PM - ANCHOR ZONE Dir. Andrée Pelletier / Canada / 2017 / 82 min - 35MM PRESENTATION!A young woman living in a dystopian St. John’s must enlist in the aid of skateboarding punks to find her father. The Laser Blast Film Society will celebrate this obscure Newfoundland sci-fi adventure on a rare 35mm print!
6:30 PM - GREEN HOUSE Dir. Armando Lamberti / USA / 2017 / 101 min - WORLD PREMIERE!A comic character study of a sneering manifestation of arrested adolescence gradually crescendos into a full-blown familial melodrama after a young man is forced to move in with estranged his half-sister. Indie filmmaking reminiscent of Hal Hartley or early Wes Anderson.
9:00 PM - JUNK HEAD Dir. Takahide Hori / Japan / 2017 / 114 min - TORONTO PREMIERE!An eight-years in the making stop-motion tour-de-force that’s as whimsical as Wallace and Gromit, but with the aesthetic predilections of H.R. Giger. It’s picaresque plot concerns a cybernetic explorer’s descent into the recesses of the Earth to recover ancient DNA that promises to restore fertility to the human race.
WHAT THE FILM FESTIVAL fills a gap in Toronto’s dense film festival landscape, showcasing outlier and outsider films that intersect definitions of both genre and avant-garde cinema and operate outside the traditional parameters of taste and convention. It is made possible in part by the funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, and sponsorship from ARROW VIDEO.